1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a template and cannulated needle for use in the medical arts to identify proper hypodermic insertion sites and technique, specifically to drain fluid from a distended painful bursa in the knee.
2. Description of the Related Art
Bursa, usually found near joints, reduce friction between either skin and underlying bones or tendons and bones that must contact each other through body movement. Bursa contain lubricating fluid to reduce such friction. A large number of people, who may either injure their knee joint or irritate the bursa from pressure on the knee joint, are afflicted with a condition where a bursa of a knee becomes filled with blood or synovial fluid, and thus painfully distended. Such a condition causes discomfort, sometimes severe, as well as a limitation of the range of movement of the knee which often requires the bursa to be drained of the fluid.
A physician faced with a patient having a distended bursa must know the proper sites on the leg for hypodermic insertion of the draining apparatus, such as a needle. A need has therefore developed in the medical community for a device which indicates these proper sites.
General Practice or Emergency Room physicians generally have little, or no, training in the proper method of draining a distended bursa. When a knee bursa is not filled with fluid, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to locate. In training, medical students frequently learn anatomy from cadavers where the body fluids have been drained such that the knee bursa have little or no fluid contained within them. Consequently, trained physicians frequently have little knowledge of the proper sites, the best technique, or angles for insertion of a drainage apparatus.
A needle is the common apparatus presently used for draining knee bursa. Insertion of a needle in draining the bursa, however, is a very painful procedure for the patient. As the bursa contracts from fluid being drained, the needle will often contact the bursa inner wall, causing additional discomfort. Additionally, such contact, or other material commonly within the fluid, will clog the single opening of the needle. When the needle becomes clogged, it must then be removed and either cleaned or replaced before the drainage procedure can be resumed. Such removal and reinsertion adds to the duration of the discomfort to the patient plus increase the possibility of infection.
A need, therefore, also exists in the medical art for a bursa drainage device which is resistant to clogging and which is flexible so as to cause less discomfort to the patient.